A US judge halted warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency and ruled that President George W. Bush overstepped his authority when authorizing the unconstitutional program. Federal Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ordered a permanent injunction barring the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which has been used to monitor millions of US citizens. ‘It was never the intent of the (Constitutional) framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly when his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights,’ Taylor wrote in a 43-page opinion. The ruling was immediately appealed by the NSA and the injunction was temporarily stayed ahead of an appeals court ruling. The decision was a significant blow to Bush’s attempts to expand presidential powers in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. It comes just weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration overstepped its authority in setting up military tribunals to try war on terror detainees held at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ‘It’s pretty sweeping,’ said Robert Bennett, a professor at Northwestern University’s law school, noting that the ruling went beyond faulting the administration for violating Congressional rules on wiretapping. […]
A once-rare drug-resistant germ now appears to cause more than half of all skin infections treated in U.S. emergency rooms, say researchers who documented the superbug’s startling spread in the general population. Many victims mistakenly thought they just had spider bites that wouldn’t heal, not drug-resistant staph bacteria. Only a decade ago, these germs were hardly ever seen outside of hospitals and nursing homes. Doctors also were caught off-guard – most of them unwittingly prescribed medicines that do not work against the bacteria. ‘It is time for physicians to realize just how prevalent this is,’ said Dr. Gregory Moran of Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, who led the study. Another author, Dr. Rachel Gorwitz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said: ‘I think no one was aware of the extent of the problem.’ Skin infections can be life-threatening if bacteria get into the bloodstream. Drug-resistant strains can also cause a vicious type of pneumonia and even ‘flesh-eating’ wounds. The CDC paid for the study, published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. Several authors have consulted for companies that make antibiotics. Researchers analyzed all skin infections among adults who went to hospital […]
NEW YORK – About half of adults in middle-income families reported serious problems in paying for their health care while even those in more affluent circumstances said they had troubles with medical bills, a new survey found. Forty-eight percent of individuals in families earnings between $35,000 and $49,999 said they had either a somewhat serious or very serious problem paying their medical bills in the last two years, according to a study by The Commonwealth Fund. Meanwhile, 50 percent of adults in that income bracket said they had difficulties affording their health insurance. Meanwhile, 33 percent of individual in families earning between $50,000 and $74,999 a year said they had trouble paying for medical bills while 21 percent of people in families earning $75,000 or more reported such a dilemma. Fifty percent of individuals in families earnings less than $35,000 annually reported such a problem. Thirty-five percent of people in families with an annual income of between $50,000 to $74,999 reported they had trouble paying for health insurance while 23 percent of those in families earning $75,000 or more said the same. Forty-eight percent of those in families with incomes of less than $35,000 said they the […]
WASHINGTON, (AP) — Two top Pentagon commanders said Thursday that spiraling violence in Baghdad could propel Iraq into outright civil war, using a politically loaded term that the Bush administration has long avoided. The generals said they believe a full-scale civil war is unlikely. Even so, their comments to Congress cast the war in more somber hues than the administration usually uses, and further dampened lawmakers’ hopes that troops would begin returning home in substantial numbers from the widely unpopular war in time for this fall’s elections. ‘I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war,’ Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the senators, ‘We do have the possibility of that devolving into civil war.’ White House press secretary Tony Snow, flying with President Bush to Texas aboard Air Force One, said the generals had ‘reiterated something we’ve talked about on a number of occasions, which is the importance […]
BAGHDAD — Al Qaeda wants to build a political operation in Iraq to broaden its campaign against the U.S.-backed government, a top U.S. general said on Wednesday. Citing intelligence mostly gathered since the death of al Qaeda’s former leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June, Major General William Caldwell said the militant group appeared to be refining its approach beyond bombings and beheadings. ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq wants to present itself as a legitimate organization and is striving to increase its operational power by building a political base with a military wing,’ Caldwell told a news briefing. He did not give specific examples. Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike on June 7 and was quickly replaced by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, who al Qaeda said would continue the Jordanian-born militant’s bloody campaign. But Caldwell said the group was also developing more subtle ways to undermine the government and drive U.S. troops from Iraq, in addition to bloody sectarian attacks. He said the militant group was producing propaganda to exploit Iraqi anger over high unemployment, poor security and unreliable supplies of electricity and fuel, and turn it against the government and its U.S. backers. ‘Al Qaeda […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
